Marilyn West explains her dilemma to Jim Lyons, a financial investigator in the Economics Crimes Division at the office of the Attorney General in Tampa. Her two daughters listen as she speaks. They are left to right, Jessica Elizabeth Tyson and Hope Angel West, center. (Times photo: Tony Lopez)

"I'm here to claim my prize"

By Paul Wilborn, Times Staff Writer (Jan. 10, 1998)

Life has not been easy for Marilyn West.

Drug dealers who control her Baltimore neighborhood threaten her
and her two daughters daily. West said she grew up in an abusive
home and married an abusive husband. She chronicled her troubled
life in a 173-page autobiography she calls Miles of Fear.

She hoped the book would be a ticket out of her troubled neighborhood.
But before her agent could find a publisher, West opened a letter
from American Family Publishers spokesmen Ed McMahon and Dick
Clark.

She rubbed off a number. It matched the prize number under the
security seal. She read the letter again and started shaking.
She appeared to be an $11-million winner. She looked for a disclaimer,
like the ones she saw on other sweepstakes pitches, but didn't
see one.

The instructions said to respond to a Tampa address within five
days. By the time she opened the letter Wednesday, only two days
remained.

So West borrowed $1,500 from her sister and flew to Tampa on Thursday
with daughters Hope Angel West, 19, and Jessica Elizabeth Tyson,
11, to claim the money.

But like many disappointed people before them, they found no millions
waiting. No balloons. No parties.

They didn't even get a smiling face at the office building at
3000 University Center Drive, near University Mall, that was listed
on her entry letter.

It is a telemarketing office for Time Customer Service, a company
under the Time-Warner corporate logo, as is American Family Publishers.

West and her daughters are not the first people to come to Tampa
thinking they are American Family sweepstakes winners. Last September,
Richard Lusk, 88, flew from California, thinking he had a winning
entry. Airport police later identified nine other people, most
of them elderly, who had flown to Tampa over the past two years,
chasing a non-existent sweepstakes prize.

Many of them, like the Wests, go to 3000 University Center Drive.

West and her daughters were stopped in an alcove by a security
guard, a frowning man who did not give his name.

"What are you here for?" he asked them.

"I'm here to claim my prize," West said.

She produced her entry, with the matching number. The one that
urged West to "come forward in the next 5 days" and that said,
"Remember Marilyn West, from this day forward, we're waiting for
the $11,000,000.00 winning number to arrive at our Tampa, Florida
Headquarters."

But there was nothing waiting for West at the Tampa headquarters.

The frowning man told her she should mail in her entry. He offered
to call a cab but did not apologize for their inconvenience.

"He left us standing out in the hall," West said. "He was angry
that I brought the letter."

They spent the night at a nearby motel, unsure what to do next.

"I just kind of walked around," West said.

Eventually, she and her daughters walked to Luby's for dinner.

Unable to afford another $31 cab ride, they caught a bus to downtown
Friday, hoping it was near the airport. A man at the bus stop
heard their story and sent them to the Hillsborough County Courthouse
to file a complaint.

Eventually, they ended up at the Florida attorney general's office
in Tampa. Florida is one of 20 states investigating American Family
Publishers.

Jim Lyons, an investigator, and Gary Betz, an attorney who is
handling the state investigation into American Family Publishers,
looked over the letter.

"I'm angry about this, and I'm sure you're angry," Betz told West.
"We're trying to make sure they do things that aren't deceptive."

But he offered her little hope.

"Unfortunately, the law is sometimes slow," Betz said.

American Family Publishers attorney David Carlin could not be
reached for comment Friday. Carlin has said the company's practices
are not deceptive, but some people "couldn't separate fantasy
from reality."

But West said she gets sweepstakes pitches all the time and has
always found the disclaimer. The "if." But not this one.

"We're not dumb," she said. "If you look at it, it says: "Come
on and get your money. It's in bank for you.' It's all a lie."

The state investigators said the disclaimers in West's letter
were quite subtle. West thought she had won after a hidden number
she scratched off matched her "prize claim number." But the letter,
which mentions matching numbers several times, says later the
match must be made with the "secretly preselected winning number."

"This is not one we've seen before," Lyons said.

There was one bit of good news for West and her daughters. Lyons
called an official at Busch Gardens and told them what had happened
to the family. They were offered free passes to the park.

Instead of spending her winnings Friday, West and her daughters
toured a theme park and at 9 p.m. caught a US Airways flight back
home.

West said she would wait until she got home to start worrying
about how she would repay her sister the $1,500.